It’s the 4th Friday of the month and you know what that means… BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is hosting Swingology!  Swingology is a concept we at Boston Swing Central have been developing to explore some details of the music we all love to dance to!  The question, “What swings?” has been the source of considerable debate and discussion, so we want Swingology to be the place where DJs can showcase their own diverse interpretations of “What swings?”.

Depending on the DJ, you may get a blend of classic swing (Bix Beiderbeck, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey) with favorite soul artists (Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone), or maybe the best of Neo-swing (Indigo Swing, Lavay Smith) and great swing-era divas (Ella, Carmen McRae, Ernestine Anderson), and there’s sure to be some fantastic jump blues and hot jazz in the mix too! The idea of Swingology is to explore some of these boundaries while keeping the mix strongly rooted in familiar artists and songs we love to hear.

We know that a lot of our DJs like to play some pretty funky stuff on occasion, but since the idea of Swingology is specifically to keep things swingin’, you can expect a night full of good, solid, swing dance music from every corner of the kingdom of Swing! It is quite a challenge for the DJs, but one thing’s for sure, the music will be like the weather in New England: if you don’t like it, just wait 5 minutes.  Come see where Swingology will take you!

Kellian Adams and Brian Pletcher are back for their monthly lesson with BSC, and we’re sure they will have some great stuff for you this week!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Come to BOSTON SWING CENTRAL this week for Rocco and the Stompers! They’re a little big band with a big heart in the spirit of Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. We asked Frank from Beantown Swing Orchestra if he could make a smaller version of his great band to showcase the different character that smaller swing bands offer. He told us he already had one and they were called Rocco & the Stompers! We talked to leader Danny Fratina and he was very receptive to doing some of our favorite songs, he even worked out new charts for songs we gave him by Duke Ellington and Roy Eldridge! Wow, what more could we ask for? This will be their 3rd time playing Boston Swing Central and we’re excited to be able to bring them back for you again!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$13 / $10 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Newsflash!

We are excited to update you with news that the Boston Phoenix is going to check out Boston Swing Central this Friday for Neo-Swing night.  They’re sending someone over to take the lesson and experience the dance, and we hope you will come out to help us show them that swing dancing is alive and swingin’ in Boston!

This week, we want to take you back in time; but instead of the usual jump to the 40s and 50s, we’ll revisit the years that were our own swingin’ beginnings: the 90s! So put on your best “Zoot Suit Riot” and come “Jump, Jive, and Wail” all night long as our DJs spice up their rockin’ sets with an extra serving of your favorite contemporary swing bands, including Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Indigo Swing, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and all the rest. Our DJs for the night will be Khrysti Smyth, James “TopCAT” McClurkin, and Jason Provost.

Not sure what we’re talking about? Watch the 1998 Gap Khakis commercial that helped set off the Neo-Swing explosion and let this little slice of contemporary history spark your memory!

And, as if that wasn’t enough to get you excited about this week at BSC, Amanda and Shawn of It’s All Swing are back again to teach for us this week!  Can you imagine two weeks in a row of this awesome pair?  Maybe they’ll pull out some retro “Neo-Swing” moves to teach us!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

This week, BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is Swinging with King Louie!  Not Louis XIV, but rather Louis Armstrong, Louis Jordan and Louis Prima!  We’ll have the superlative Louis Armstrong catalog, the jump blues of Louis Jordan, and that Vegas kitsch of Louis Prima to delight your ears all night long.  Sounds like a winning combination to us!

Our instructors tonight will be the phenomenal Amanda Gruhl and Shawn Hershey of It’s All Swing studios!  This is a dynamic duo that we absolutely adore for many reasons, not the least of which is the amount of thought and care they put into the development of their revolutionary teaching style.  Come see what they have to offer you this week!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Did you know…?

• Louis Armstrong was nicknamed Satchmo.
• Louis Jordan hailed from Arkansas and he is often credited with penning the first rock and roll song, called “Saturday Night Fish Fry”.
• Louis Prima is the voice of everybody’s favorite swingin’ orangutan and inspiration for this night: King Louie from Disney’s animated classic, “The Jungle Book”!